Falling in Love with Natassia

by Anna Monardo

  “Why isn’t my mother here?” Ross asked, turning to Mary. He gave a nod toward Nora and Christopher, who sat across the room from him. He said, “They’re here, but my mother’s not?”

  “Your mother’s tired, Ross. Her husband just died.”

  “Yes, I am sorry, Ross,” Heather said, “about your loss. The loss of your father. Natassia. Mary. You’ve all had a significant loss recently. To do this now, meet as we are now, I know it’s difficult for you. It must be difficult for you, and I appreciate how—”

  The odd cadences of Heather’s speech were hypnotic. It was a rhythmic repetition, a sort of stitching together, not of words but of phrases, moving through her sentences slowly, reaching back, picking up a few words, carrying them forward. Priestess was the word that came to Nora’s mind.

  For years, Nora had imagined how it might be when she and Christopher came together with Natassia and Mary and Ross to tell about that afternoon in France, but Nora had never imagined them in the charge of someone like Heather. When Mary had handed over Heather’s business card that day at Lotte’s, Nora, snob that she was, had thought, Oh no, a social worker? For this? Now, in the room, it was too early for Nora to tell if Heather was up to the job or not, but Heather certainly had authority. It surprised Nora to see how young she was, possibly younger than Nora, and she was even paler than Nora—invisible eyebrows, absolutely no makeup, or else a lot of pale pancake. Heather had a prettiness that wasn’t contemporary: it was the wan translucence of madonnas in Flemish paintings. She had a wide koala-bear nose made prominent by the way her hair was pulled away from her face with a tortoiseshell headband so thick it looked like a crown. Her no-color hair hung all the way down her very straight back. Regal. Heather’s long, tapered fingers rested on the thick carved-wood arms of her chair. She’s like Henry VIII. And adding to Heather’s authority was her obvious wealth.

  The office was attached to the side of the rambling French countrystyle house she lived in, probably with her husband. Nora had seen a toddler with a French-speaking redhead, probably the au pair, who was hosing down the dog’s bowls outside in the portico when she and Christopher had driven up the long cobblestone driveway half an hour early for the appointment. They had parked next to a large marble urn, sat silently in their rented Tempo, and looked up at a long slope of wild landscaping, then up at the leaded windows three stories high. “Holy shit,” Christopher had said. From her passenger seat, Nora counted three discreetly placed lawn sculptures—two made of metal (Nora recognized the work but couldn’t remember the name of the sculptor, some woman Christopher knew and envied), one of wood. Since Heather clearly had more money, Nora was hoping Heather wouldn’t be as good a therapist. Then Nora took that wish back—they really did need to be working with someone good.

  It was dark in the wood-paneled office, but two leaded windows were opened, letting in warm air and light. Heather had a fire going in the fireplace, but it must have been early-morning-made: the fire logs were now almost charred out. The ceiling was very high, wood-beamed. A dog was sitting at Heather’s feet. Very Henry VIII. Heather made no apologies for the dog, a huge, old, stinky St. Bernard with matted fur, missing an ear. Julius, she called him. All she had said about the dog as she ushered everyone into her office was that Julius was sick and had to be in the room with her—no apology. What if one of us was allergic to dogs? Now, as Julius shifted in place, his ribs rippled prominently under his mangled fur. He’s dying.

  “So, Natassia, we’re here,” Heather was saying. “We’re here together now, with thanks to your father for traveling cross-country, and thanks also to Nora and Christopher, thanks to them for traveling up here from the city. Natassia, where should we begin?”

  “No,” Natassia said right away, but smiling more girlishly than when she was a little kid. “There’s no way I’m starting, Heather. You start. I’ll go next, but you start.”

  “Fine,” Heather said, nodding. There was a direct aisle of energy between Heather and Natassia. It was a good sign, Nora thought, that Heather had gained Natassia’s trust in a relatively short time. Nora’s patient had met with Nora through most of her pregnancy and beyond before revealing that her elderly parents and her two older brothers suffered serious alcoholism. It was a few weeks after Baby Frida’s birth. Nora, thank God, had had a chance to apologize for her inappropriate reaction to the news that Frida’s father had moved in, and she and the patient were moving forward, dealing mostly with practical issues but at least talking, building trust. In that particular session, the woman was crying, seriously sleep-deprived. In a month she’d have to return to work, and her nanny had been called abruptly away. The father was in the apartment but useless, her friends were sympathetic but all had busy careers, and Nora had asked, “Is there any way your family can help you?”

  “Stop with my family,” the patient had snapped. “They’re not an option, okay? They’re drunks, a bunch of absolute alcoholics. Okay? That’s why I can’t tell them about the baby. They still don’t even know I was pregnant.”

  “But”—Nora finally had an opening, she couldn’t blow it—“what would happen if you did tell them?”

  The patient’s answer was immediate, undefended, calm: “I’d lose everything.”

  “You’d lose everything,” Nora repeated.

  “My ex-fiancé, the man who left me—it was because of my family. He couldn’t accept the idea of raising kids in a family like mine.”

  “So,” Nora said, “do you also have problems with alcohol?”

  “Me? No. By the time I was born, all the alcoholic genes were used up. My mother was menopausal when I was born. She was five months’ pregnant before she knew she was even pregnant. I’m telling you, my parents are old, geriatric.”

  “And still drinking?” Nora asked.

  “Is the sky blue? Look, they’re very sick people. There’s no way I could have cut them off the way my ex-fiancé wanted me to. They’re my family. I love them.” The woman began to sob. “I feel so sorry for them. I don’t know what would happen to them. Really. I mean, since I was a kid they’ve depended on me and worried so much about me.”

  “Worried?” Nora asked.

  “We’d leave family holidays at night and they’d have to give me the car keys. They couldn’t even trust themselves to drive. And they’d say, ‘Slow, dear! Don’t attract cops.’ ”

  “And your brothers?”

  “They were gone—college, married, whatever. It was just me.”

  “And their worry about the cops?” Nora asked. “If you weren’t drinking?”

  “Well, I was only thirteen. Maybe fourteen. What’s wrong? Dr. Conolly, you have tears in your eyes. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s a lot, way too much for a thirteen-year-old. To drive illegally, to care for two alcoholic parents. An age when a girl should be with friends—”

  “Yeah, they couldn’t help it.” Then, “You’re mad at me, aren’t you, for waiting so long to tell you about them.”

  “Of course I’m not mad. I feel sad for what you’ve carried. All this, on top of your pregnancy. So much.”

  And then the patient was sobbing. “I really want Frida. I want my baby so much.”

  “You have her. She is yours. You gave birth to her. You’re doing everything you can to take care of her. You are her mother. How could they take Frida from you?”

  “Way in the beginning, when I started therapy with you, I knew I wanted the baby, I knew it, but on my own I couldn’t have gone through with it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Too afraid, too…I don’t know.”

  “I’m glad, then, that you gave this to yourself. And that you’re giving yourself this new opportunity. Here, now.”

  “Opportunity for what?”

  “To unburden yourself.”

  “You know, I’m the one who called Frida’s father. He didn’t call me. Two weeks before my due date, I just couldn’t stand the thought of her coming into the world without a father there. It�
��s just sometimes, when my family’s all together, it feels so good. I want Frida to have that, a whole family.”

  “Do you feel you’ve had a whole family?”

  The woman didn’t answer Nora’s question, but she said, “Have you ever felt—Well, I hope you’ve never felt it, but it’s like, no matter what I do or how careful I am…I can’t bear even the beginning of the thought that I might lose Frida.” The woman wiped away tears and tears with tissues from the box Nora had passed to her. After a long time, quieted, she passed the box back to Nora and said, “I don’t know if I can explain to you what it feels like inside to lose so much and to be so afraid of losing even more.”

  “Okay, Natassia,” Heather was saying now, “I will begin. I’ll start us off. I’ll begin by saying, saying to your parents, and to Nora and Christopher, that, yes, Natassia wanted you all here today, wanted us all here together, so that important information can be shared. And it is important to Natassia, she expressed this to me, that this information be shared in an environment that feels, to her, safe. Where there are controls in place, some boundaries, to ensure her safety. That will be my role, setting these limits. Together, we’ll work in this way: Everyone will have an opportunity to speak as freely as he or she would like. As freely as you are able. It goes without saying that we are working here together with complete confidentiality. Nothing said here will leave this room. So, please, all of you, all of us, together, whatever feelings arise can be expressed. The only restriction is, of course, that there be no violence, no threatening acts toward others or toward oneself.”

  “The dog’s staying in here?” Ross asked.

  “Yes, as I mentioned earlier—”

  “But he smells, Heather,” Ross said. “He’s farting to beat the band.”

  “Yes, poor thing, he’s very sick.”

  Nora had been so focused on Heather, she hadn’t noticed that all around Ross hung a jittery shimmer of bad energy. Maybe he was dressed like a professor, but he was slouched far down in his chair like an uncooperative student, elbows hanging off of the armrests, fingers tepeed in front of his face. He’s never looked this strung out before.

  Heather, delicately embroidering her words and phrases into sentences and full paragraphs, was moving toward the big moment, saying, “Natassia has recently learned some personal history, events from her very young life, some events—”

  “Listen, I’ll go first, Heather,” Mary interrupted. She’d been staring at a patch of sunlight on the carpet. Mary looked up, finally looked across the room, straight at Christopher. “I feel like I should be the one to tell Ross.”

  “Tell me what?” Ross bolted straight up in his chair. “There’s something everyone else here knows, and I don’t. What’s going on? Why’d you drag me up here for this inquisition?”

  Heather leaned forward. “Ross, you could go on in that way, you could continue, but I don’t think it will be useful. For Natassia, it won’t be useful.”

  Mary cut in on Heather again. “Ross, listen. Just listen to me.” Mary, too, was leaning forward. “Look. We have to tell you this. When Natassia was a baby, really tiny…”

  “Mary,” Ross demanded. “Be clear. When she was young, how young?”

  Ross was the wild card. It occurred to Nora that maybe Heather had the dog in the room to protect her, in case Ross, or somebody else, did get violent, even though she’d issued her warning. Nora’s clothes were much too warm.

  Mary was saying, “She was six weeks old, okay? Tiny, infant—”

  “Yeah? And what?” Listening to Mary, waiting, Ross was staring at Natassia, who was now staring at the blotch of sunlight on the carpet.

  “She was mol-”—Mary’s voice dropped—“-lested.”

  “What?” Ross demanded.

  “I said Natassia was…I can’t—”

  “I was sexually molested, Dad, when I was a baby. In France.”

  Ross made a face and a sound. Spinning toward Natassia, he reached over and pulled her chair next to his, and the padded arms of their chairs bumped loudly together. Ross touched Natassia’s cheek. “Who?” he asked her; then his voice pleaded, “Honey, who?”

  Ross hugged Natassia’s head as if to hide her. Natassia held on to his arms, tried to raise her face to him, but she couldn’t. “Dad! My arm. Don’t, that hurts.”

  “Who?” Still holding Natassia, Ross demanded from Mary, “Who fucking was it?”

  And then Nora heard a whisper next to her. “Me,” Christopher said. “It was me.”

  The shock in the room was how quickly Heather managed to step in to stop what was happening next. Ross had shot across the room in two strides and grabbed the arm of Christopher’s chair. But then Heather was there, tall but thin as willow branches, her arms between Christopher hunkered down in his seat, and Ross standing over him. Heather said in a loud, even voice, “Down,” as an owner would command its unruly dog, but added, “Please. Sit down, Ross.” He wouldn’t budge. “How will this help your daughter?”

  And then Ross did go back to his own chair. He kicked it. He kicked it again, hard, until it hit the wood-paneled wall.

  “Are you all right?” Heather asked Christopher, who had begun to cry. He sat up in his chair and crossed one leg over the other. Nora sensed his movement; she couldn’t look at him. There’s a baby and a widow in Nyack. “Christopher? Are you hurt?” Heather asked again.

  Christopher shook his head no; he wasn’t hurt. But he was crying hard now, and Nora, a little shocked by the nothingness she felt for him, just stared at the dog’s paws. Caked with mud. When Nora’s patients cried, she always kept her eyes on them, so that when they looked back up they’d feel her with them, they’d feel connected, not alone. Christopher’s crying sounds like a pork chop being sliced. Then Nora almost smiled, almost laughed, at the absurdity of her thoughts. This is my anger. She almost laughed again at her outrageous detachment from the man she’d stayed married to for more than a dozen years. He’s pathological. He’s a maniac. He’s poop. Now she had to bite on the ulcers on the insides of her cheeks to keep from laughing. Stop. You’re getting hysterical. I’m the wild card here. Not Ross. It’s me. What if I kill somebody? My God, I have to pee, what if I wet my pants?

  Ross, across the room, was muttering.

  Sobs were galloping out of Christopher’s mouth, too fast, a stampede of sobbing. Something bad is going to happen. And, indeed, from across the room, Ross’s voice was becoming audible, “…guinea fucking wop, you stupid bad painter…” Then, louder, “…you no-talent dago nigger.”

  “Dad!” Natassia panicked. “Da-ad! Mom, make him stop.”

  “You hopeless fuck,” Ross shouted.

  “Dad. Stop! Mo-om!”

  “How do you sleep with such an ignorant peasant?” Ross was yelling. Nora realized, He’s yelling at me. Ross spit onto Heather’s carpet. He spit again. His hand was on Natassia’s chair, rocking it, jerking it back and forth, and the look on Natassia’s face was one of utter panic.

  “Ross,” Mary said, low. He wouldn’t stop, so Mary stood, and as soon as she did, Ross let Natassia’s chair rest. Immediately, Natassia stood and walked away from both her parents; she took the chair next to Heather’s.

  “Baby?” Ross begged.

  “I don’t want you to touch me,” Natassia said, “not when you’re talking like that.”

  Ross stood and walked to the paneled corner and leaned into it. Then, quick, he turned and landed a punch into the wall. He pounded the wall twice more. Everyone heard the crack of his finger as it broke. “Ah,” he grunted.

  “Ross,” Heather commanded, “you must stop. Now.”

  Mary’s back was to him, and she didn’t turn to look, but Natassia, so worried, was watching Ross hug his hand and slide his back down the wall. There was a good hard thump when he landed on the floor. The injured hand was tucked inside his jacket; he was doubled over and shouting, “He hurt our daughter, that smelly piece of shit, that stink sitting over there, he hurt Natassia.” />
  “We all hurt her, Ross,” Mary said to him. She spoke quietly, like a wife confident she knew her husband better than anyone else in the room did; and, like a longtime husband, Ross stopped shouting as soon as Mary spoke. “Those days in France, Ross, we left her. She was six weeks old. She was breastfeeding, and I left her. We even stayed away an extra day longer than we said we would.”

  Silence. Then Ross, aiming his words to the back of Mary’s head, said, “You never liked the breastfeeding.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “You always complained.”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “You had all that extra milk in your breasts. Remember? They were bursting. I drank all of it. I thought it tasted so fucking tasty, so—”

  “And I should have been back at Christopher’s feeding the baby.”

  “You had so much milk in your breasts.” Ross was hugging his injured hand.

  Nora watched Natassia, who was sucking both her thumbs.

  Next to Nora, Christopher was blowing his nose into a handkerchief, a sound so disgusting to her, she looked over at him, but when she glanced, she almost gasped. Every handsomeness had faded from Christopher’s face. There was an oily sheen of despair across his forehead and within the creases alongside his nose. Nora had a patient with HIV, and in the course of a few weeks, the drugs he was taking had transformed his looks so completely that, one day, stepping out into the waiting room, she hadn’t recognized him. Like that. Christopher’s face was suddenly that changed.

  Out of a long silence, Ross said, “You’ll never forget.”

  Who’s Ross talking to?

  “You’ll never forget what I just said to you. The words I just called you.”

  “No,” Christopher said. “But I always knew you thought it.”

  “Good,” Ross said. “I’m glad you knew. I’m glad you knew.”

  “And Natassia will never forget what I did to her,” Christopher said. Nora felt him shift in his chair, turn to face Natassia. “Natassia,” Christopher said, “you deserve to know, I want to tell you exactly what—”